Salmon Farmers Are Using Riot Guns to Fight off Hungry Seals

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a seal. And you find yourself at a salmon farm. It’s fair to assume that you, a seal, would be somewhat excited about this situation—a furry little kid in an aquacultural candy store—and that there would be almost nothing that could stop you from going in on as many of the freshwater fish as possible. Nothing, except for maybe being shot with a riot gun.

Over the past five years, more than 8,700 beanbag bullets have been fired at seals around Tasmanian salmon farms and aquacultural sites, as revealed in Right To Information documents and reported by the ABC. The wild seals are straying a little too close for comfort, apparently, ripping through the nets and making off with precious salmon. And the fish farmers are retaliating with force.

In 2016 alone, 3,770 beanbag rounds and 39,024 underwater explosives were used to deter the marine carnivores, allegedly in order to protect both farm infrastructure and staff. In 2017 those numbers decreased somewhat to 1,000 and 28,748, respectively. But the war wages on nonetheless.

The bean bag rounds—fired from 12-gauge shotguns, and more typically used in riot control and law enforcement situations—are meant to be non-lethal, and the explosives—known as “crackers”—are essentially just underwater firecrackers meant to scare the seals off. According to a number of animal welfare proponents though, the use of these weapons constitutes a serious and “unacceptable” risk to the wellbeing of the seals.

“From an animal welfare perspective beanbags are high risk, they are inappropriate and likely to injure the animal,” said Dr Rick Campbell, former Chairman of Tasmania’s Animal Welfare Advisory Committee. “It is certainly a concern… These are fast-moving animals and it is most likely the head that is above water. The risks of significant injuries is high.”

Malcolm Caulfield, founder and principal lawyer of Tasmania’s Animal Welfare Community Legal Centre, is wont to agree.

“It's a scandal, it's outrageous and a completely unacceptable situation,” he said. “There are reports of seals being blinded and deafened by these [devices]. What we are seeing is an industrial-scale use of cruel measures against a protected species in Tasmanian waters.”

These cruel measures pale in comparison to similar situations abroad, however. In 2013 it was revealed that over half of the salmon farms in Scotland straight-up killed seals that were proving to be an encumbrance upon their livestock—usually by shooting them with actual, lead bullets. Last month, The Guardian reported that a number of RSPCA-approved Scottish salmon farms are known to regularly exercise lethal force against seal “pests”.

Meanwhile, the CEO of RSPCA Tasmania, Dr Andrew Byrne, has deemed the use of beanbag rounds “unacceptable”.

“It’s noxious stimuli and therefore RSPCA Australia wouldn’t accept it whatsoever,” he said. “It’s in the same category as shock collars on dogs, and citronella collars on dogs.”

"I will be looking into the issue of beanbags further."